We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Let's make a deal. I will agree to treating anyone and everyone who walks through an ER with no insurance, if you allow us to keep illegals from entering the country through building a wall and enforcing our immigration law.

How does that sound? That would solve a LOT of our problems with giving out 'free treatment' in certain areas of the country.

MissT: I will agree to treating anyone and everyone who walks through an ER with no insurance, if you allow us to keep illegals from entering the country through building a wall and enforcing our immigration law.

Not sure how they are linked. In any case, Reagan signed into law the hospital mandate, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Now, the problem becomes that many poor people wait until they are seriously ill before seeking treatment, which makes many easily treatable conditions (e.g. high blood pressure, diabetes) much more expensive to treat.

Tanagers like nuts: otherwise a hospital's legal obligations are commonly covered by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and similar state law.

Sure, but the suggestion was that government should be out of healthcare altogether. That would indicate the commenter would reject the hospital mandate, and we wanted to verify that was really their position, or whether they had actually thought through the question.

I believe that hospitals should treat emergencies regardless of insurance or immigration status. However the hospital should be allowed to bill the federal government to cover all expenses AND in the case of non-citizens that billing should be sent to the country of origin and all the power of the federal government should be used to make sure those costs are paid for by the homeland of that person. In the case of U.S. citizens those expenses should be recouped as well and even use the IRS to attach and tax refunds to pay those costs. I do not believe that a hospital should be required to provide non-emergency treatment simply when someone shows up at their door. If that is to become a right than it should be decided by each state as to what they will pay and not by the federal government who simply has no constitutional ability to do so.

What's your view on your obligation to feed everyone who comes to your door? What if they need to be fed for 20 years, to sleep under your roof, and to have you foot the bill for college for all their children?--In short, can you conceive of a duty of generosity that's laid at your own doorstep, and not merely at the doorstep of people who underwent expensive and difficult training that you haven't attempted for yourself?

JLawson: Current practice is to treat anyone who comes into an ER, regardless of their ability to pay.

That's the law in most developed countries. The question is whether the government should get out of healthcare altogether, which would mean, among other things, eliminating the hospital mandate. It would also mean ending government supported research, coordination during epidemics, etc.

I do not understand the Swedish and the Europeans. If my 14 year old daughter was gang raped and the police/courts decided they would do nothing about it I would do something about it. Probably kill them but maybe just remove certain parts of their anatomy. Maybe this does happen from time to time over their and we just don't hear about it but I suspect it is only the immigrant crimes that are being covered up.

This is the problem with ineffective or intentional biased law enforcement in that the people must then take the law into their own hands. Sweden is making a mistake. I do not believe this can go on much longer without open revolt unless the Swedish are so emasculated that they will simply roll over for this.

Did you not read the story? The 16 yr old rapist is a victim also because he got 100 hours of community service and a bunch of mandated counseling sessions. And the 15-yr old is a victim because, you know, he's a rapist.

The 14-yr old historically Swedish girl, she was just vaginally and orally penetrated and over reacted by becoming to fearful to go to school.

And there shouldn't be any killings. Accidents, maybe, but no overt killing...yet.

Zach - as an unhyphenated, E Pluribus Unum American myself, I see your post and say, "what? West Side Story again???"

Change your playbook response, JAFO. There are Americans of Puerto Rican ancestry that are hard-core Americans, Constitutional Originalists... and there are hard-core lemmings who learned their worldview from living in the democrat-controlled coastal BigGov zones. Vets and LIVs. Republicans & Democrats.

IOW, PR is pretty much like any other place in the USofA, but like California, that it leans strong left. My parents were born there, and both are strong Republicans - even as they came of age under the Muñóz Marín administration. That man was the first Puerto Rican governor of the territory, and father of the local democrat party "Partido Populár Democrático PPD") - and his policies were right out of the Roosevelt book of Big Gov, little socialism model our current dhimmicrat party flies their banner under.

It's your opinion, you wanna use the " evereeting ees freee ing A-meeh-reek-a!" meme to express yourself, go ahead - i'm not going to stop you. But I'm not going to take it silently, either.

I've been dealing with JAFOs like you all my life, they tell me they're Polish, or Italian or whatever, and I ask what part of Poland or Italy they grew up in, and when they say no, I was born in ("..." - take your pick, Kansas, Brooklyn, Trout Creek Montana, whatever...) I tell them "then you're an American!" - and it somehow always seem to jar them a bit.

E Pluribus Unum, hombre - and that's a promise that I have from my Founding Fathers, which I do not need nor ask to have validated by the likes of you.

In short, I'm an American, born here of parents born in Puerto Rico - and to Hell with what you think about that.

For Bird Dog: suppose you get your wish, Puerto Rico separates from the United States - what do you do with all the Americans who were born in Puerto Rico?

For my part, I don't want PR to become a state because it will add more dem congressmen and senators to our federal government - and outside of Jim Webb & Joe Lieberman, I would see every single current democrat politician bounced with more than a few getting a liberal dose of tar and feathers on their way out!

Outside of that, we get the typical things that happen with dhimmicrats, with progressivism being much like a virus. When a virus destroys its cell and goes out into the bloodstream - it attaches to another cell (Californians to Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado; New Yorkers to North Carolina, South Carolina, etc....) and begins the cycle of destruction (ie: they run from the consequences of their voting habits from the states they depart, and still follow their same voting habits in their new states...) anew.

When I figure out how to stop dhimmicrat lemmings from remaining lemmings all their lives, I'll let my fellow Americans know -

Jacksonian Grouch: There are Americans of Puerto Rican ancestry that are hard-core Americans, Constitutional Originalists... and there are hard-core lemmings who learned their worldview from living in the democrat-controlled coastal BigGov zones. Vets and LIVs. Republicans & Democrats.

That's right, and most being in-between. The song depicts a dichotomy of views.

Bird Dog: Puerto Rico is just not an American sort of place.

Jacksonian Grouch: PR is pretty much like any other place in the USofA

your link from your initial post - I invite you to click and see for yourself.
>>
Bird Dog: I am in favor of Puerto Rican independence. Or return it to Spain. Puerto Rico is just not an American sort of place.

Pearson, the global education company battling a collapse in its biggest market, said it would take further costs out of the business and look to sell some assets after posting a $3.3 billion pretax loss and a sharp rise in debt.

Pearson, which has issued five profit warnings in four years after students in the United States started renting text books rather than buying them, said its loss included an impairment of goodwill of 2.5 billion pounds, reflecting the challenges facing the business.

The college textbook scam is in the process of collapsing. Market corrections and all that. College students are finding alternatives to the textbook scam.

Yeah, all those cutting edge changes in introductory financial accounting, thermodynamics, and Newtonian mechanics that they have to keep abreast of.

Seriously, they change out the problem sets, update some of the pictures, and then release the result as a new edition and jack up the price.

Particle masses still slide down frictionless slopes the same as they did in 1950, your debits still have to balance your credits, and energy is conserved while entropy increases the same way they used to do.

The market certainly is the greatest job creator, and government can certainly be a job destroyer. However,

QUOTE:

But what about unemployment? What if people want to work, but can't get a job? In almost every case, government programs are the cause of joblessness.

That is simply not the case. Markets in industrial economies are characterized by growth and retraction cycles due to overproduction. These can be aggravated by monetary policy, but would happen regardless. In addition, technological innovation and global trade can cause unemployment.

In a purely theoretical world, any such dislocations would be very temporary. During downturns, prices tend to drop, people buy on the dip, investors acquire equipment, and the economy turns. But in the real world, things can be sticky.

Consider a town that has been making rugs by hand for generations. Suddenly, the market is flooded with much less expensive manufactured rugs. Local consumers benefit, but the town which specialized in handmade rugs may find itself economically devastated. The town won't attract investment. Many townspeople may not have the wherewithal to relocate. The town becomes stuck in an economic downward spiral. Some of these people may be too old to learn a new trade so retire in poverty, but their children may grow up to leave to the city to work at low-paying in rug factories. Eventually, the town may wither away.

It's called creative destruction, but the process is not always simple or painless. People can be left in the lurch.

No, he lied. That PP does not perform mammograms is not new information, nor is it little-known (it would be better known, if the supporters of PP didn't keep spouting this lie). He is just trying to put a pretty face on the largest killer of unborn babies (primarily unborn black babies).

As for the rest of the the things PP does... so. All that is available from lots of places that don't have quotas on how many unborn babies they are to kill.

No, but they do perform breast examinations, and then refer out for mammograms when indicated, so it's easy to understand the confusion. We provided some statistics above. Are you saying providing healthcare to millions of women, mostly poor in underserved communities, is not meaningful work?

Schumer is a US Senator. He knows what he's saying and why. He's lying to hide the reality of what PP does. As a Jew (unless he's not a practicing Jew and is only one when it's convenient), he should be appalled at what they do.

I never said it wasn't meaningful. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Does that mean because he did some good things, we should overlook the bad?

Huh? If you mean Planned Parenthood provides abortions, that's not a secret. They also provide cancer screen, STI testing, and contraception.

mudbug: As a Jew (unless he's not a practicing Jew and is only one when it's convenient), he should be appalled at what they do.

Schumer is a member of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. The Union of Reform Judaism supports abortion rights based on the findings in the Roe decision. Under Roe, the government can restrict abortion post-viability as long as there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother.

Yes, books are more expensive than they ought to be. Yes, it is a racket. The one place I would quibble is that the story says Every academic year a new edition of practically every college textbook is released by the publisher. I teach both Government and History. Neither of our books are one year cycles. (a cycle is how long the book is in print before the new edition comes out). Government books ALL publish a new edition in the spring after the general election. History books are almost universally on three or four year cycles.

And for what it is worth, a lot of us in the college teaching field do care deeply about student costs. One thing that my department has done to combat it is to negotiate the cost of the books we adopt down for the student. So if we adopt a Government textbook that retails for $130, we tell the publisher that we won't adopt unless they can knock the price to our bookstore down to $75 per book so that our students pay $90 for it when they buy. Another thing we do is to put several free copies of our textbooks on reserve in the campus library so that students who are strapped for cash can read the books for free in their spare time. Finally, we suggest that students buy their books as ebooks because the cost of an ebook for a 1 year rental is usually 1/3 to 1/2 what they would pay for a print edition.

I would like to wrap up by telling you that students universally appreciate and benefit from our efforts. They don't. About 1/3 of my students won't read the textbook no matter how cheap or easy to read it is. Sad but true.

1) They announce beforehand that security adequate to the task will be assigned to future events, and that the security forces main goal will be to ensure that the event is conducted as scheduled regardless of the level of force required. They also announce that whoever attempts to interfere will be disciplined to the fullest extent possible both academically and legally, up to and including expulsion and arrest. They then carry through on these statements.
2) They allow these incidents to escalate – notice how they’re escalating? – until someone gets shot, either by a member of the mob or by someone defending themselves against the mob.

That the FBI was investigating the Russians before the election was widely reported. And, of course, suspected Russian operatives have always been subject to wiretapping.

Clicking through ...

QUOTE:

Computer scientists?… Connect the dots, folks.

It was independent computer scientists. A cybersleuth discovered a bank in Moscow was pinging a server owned by the Trump Organization. It could have been an attack against the Trump server, or it could have been an attempt to open a backdoor communications channel. The pattern didn't fit a malware attack, so it raised the suspicion of backdoor communications. This was publicly available information before the election.

I have no doubt the EU can successfully create a unified military command. They undoubtedly have the ability to coordinate and combine their respective general staffs under an organization outside of NATO.

The problem will be that command still won't have any soldiers or equipment.

I am one that is standing up for what Congress is doing with healthcare. We cannot get perfection. It will never pass. We need a bill that can go to the Senate, get debated, have amendments added, and be passed to Trump for signing or veto. This process is now moving. SUPPORT IT.

Trump has already stated this is step 1. This bill has to go through the reconciliation process in order to happen...they would NOT be able to get a full bill with everything you want through the Senate with 60 votes.

This bill will get through Congress (with some adjustments, as Ryan indicated) and be able to get through the Senate with the bare majority needed.

SUPPORT IT.

Steps 2 and 3 will happen. Trump has already proven he does what he promises.

Another improvement to HE... improve accessibility by restricting access due to government mandates...
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/03/06/uc-berkeley-to-restrict-access-to-course-capture-videos-audio-lectures.aspx

Saw quite a number of those brass plaque memorials to Holocaust victims when I was traveling through Europe a few years ago. In Regensburg, for example, the family names on the plaques I photographed were Herrscher and Lilienfeld. Never forget.

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: